Saturday, June 23, 2012

Spare the rod and Spoil the child ? - Here's the result


For those who haven't heard about this incident in NY you'd probably be horrified when you watch that full video. Karen Klein a 68 year old grandmother was doing her job as a bus monitor when about 4 teenagers began bullying her. This video is the full uncut 10 mins video that can be found on youtube.com

Although I don't agree with many of comments made under the video, I agree with the sentiments. It is very clear from the reaction is that we as human beings, as citizens of the world, cannot stand for this type of behavior from our young people.

But how does it start. One report said that a parent of one of the teenagers involved said that he didn't raise his child that way.

Well sometimes we don't "raise" our children that way because we don't really take the time to raise them at all!!!!!

You can't raise children by giving them all the material things in the world they will possibly want and then when they're 17 years old start to teach them moral values.

People are only able to disrespect other people when they have never had respect for themselves or anyone as they were growing up. So although you may "tell" your children to have respect for others, if your children never had respect for you as the parent and you as the parent never insisted on it then you're off to a really bad start of "raising" your child.

Raising children is more than just talking - it's about action. I learned respect for elderly by seeing my parents have respect to the elderly - beginning with my grandparents, then my aunts and uncles. They are all an extension of my family and I will treat them with the same respect that I will treat my parents.

A child who visits with his or her grandparents or great grandparents every week will probably learn respect for elders faster than the child who's parents have distanced themselves from all other family and decided to "focus" on "raising" their family.

The family is NOT limited to you, your wife and your children. We all belong to a bigger family and when we stay connected to this larger community of the family we develop values that no parent can teach on their own.

I am impressed by the many video responses from teenagers who are utterly disgusted by this behavior. One teenager said he feels he has to apologize on behalf of his entire age group!!!!
So there may be four rotten apples out there that think such a video is funny but we have to thank those parents who have taken the time to raise their children so that they can see that this is NOT at all funny.




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